


The Darkest Flood

by immortalpramheda



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Canon Universe, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Nightmares, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26921998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immortalpramheda/pseuds/immortalpramheda
Summary: Rey worries her greatest fear has come true.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 10
Kudos: 20
Collections: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas: the 2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology





	The Darkest Flood

**Author's Note:**

> This is my piece for the '2020 Reylo Fanfiction Anthology: To Rapture the Earth and the Seas'. My theme was 'Flood'.

“How was your day?”

His voice comes out of the darkness, and Rey feels his warmth surrounding her. She smiles, rolling over and catches his eye. She wasn’t alone anymore.

“Rey?” he presses when she doesn’t respond.

Before he has the chance to say anything more, her lips are pressed to his. He pushes her away. She was never one to speak her mind, but avoiding his questions wasn’t like her.

“Rey, what happened today?” He speaks with a worrying tone. He was always overly concerned about her.

“Nothing,” she says distractedly, turning away from him with a shrug. “The usual.”

He brushes her hair behind her left ear, his cold fingerprints leaving a lingering touch on her cheek. She still hasn’t answered his question. “What’s wrong?”

She rolls back over to face him. “I miss you, that’s all.”

“I’m right here,” he reassures her.

“But you’re not.” She presses her hand against his. His touch never fails to make sparks fly through her veins. “We’re galaxies apart.”

“But I’m always with you.” He wraps his arms around her, breathing on her neck.

“I know.” Then she starts talking. “Poe mixed up the atmospheric thruster with the lateral thruster on the ship and blamed me for it not working. Can you believe him? He gets on my nerves sometimes.”

He smirks. This was more like the Rey he knew and loved. “Sounds like Dameron to me.” 

“We’re still no closer to anything now that the war is over… Sometimes I don’t even know what we’re doing. It would be so much easier if you were here. You could help us rebuild. You could help us recover.”

“They didn’t want me,” he says. “I chose to come here, Rey. I chose this life. This is how it has to be.”

“I don’t think it is,” she mumbles. “Being all alone on the island. How long has it been now? Seventy two days?”

He grins. She was still the girl from Jakku who counted the days since someone left her, waiting for them to return. “You’ve been keeping count, haven’t you?”

She blushes as she glances over to the far wall of the quarters she shares with Rose. _Rose_ , she suddenly remembers. She glances at her friend’s bunk where she is softly snoring. She reminds herself to be quiet.

The markings on the metallic wall reflect in the moonlight. She’d never been able to break the habit when she was waiting for something.

“I like it here. It’s quiet and peaceful,” Ben says as he runs his hand down her cheek. “And I’m not alone.”

She was tired of this. They weren't alone, technically _,_ because of their dyad. But they physically were. “Yeah yeah, we have each other and all--”

“I didn’t mean that.”

She stares at him with a blank expression.

“The caretakers.” The creatures that took care of the island, who were always irritated at Rey. “And the porgs of course.”

She smiles as she remembers back to her brief time on Ahch-To. “Ah the caretakers, they didn’t much like me.”

“That’s where we differ, they seem to like me quite a bit.”

“Well, I’m happy for you.” she says, feigning jealousy. 

He can sense the sadness in her voice. “We’ll be back together soon.”

“You didn’t have to leave.”

“Rey, we’ve been over this.”

“I know, it’s just…” She doesn't know how to continue, she misses him more than she can put into words. But he knows. Of course he knows, because he feels the same.

He pulls her into a tight hug, her head leaning against his broad chest. It was warm. It was safe. His touch was home.

He doesn’t speak for a few moments and Rey can feel his emotions beginning to change. That empty pit in his stomach that she knew well, that she’d always been able to sense ever since they’d been connected. She could feel a wave of emotion overcoming him, of an endless darkness.

She listens to his heartbeat for a few silent moments and she tries to figure out what’s going on inside his head. She could always feel some of what he was feeling, but he still tried to keep things from her out of shame.

She could feel it now, these emotions he was allowing himself to be enveloped by. This used to be his biggest fear - the neverending darkness. The dark used to frighten him as a child. Then he began to embrace it, which led him down a bad path. A path that almost broke his spirit. That almost tore his soul apart. But he’d come a long way since then.

She knew what question to ask him now. “Ben,” she says. “What are you afraid of?”

It had become their routine, each night when they connected they asked each other the same question. Learning more about each other, little things their dyad didn’t automatically give them.

It takes him a moment to answer, but when he does his voice sounds like it did back in the hut. Scared and vulnerable. “Death.”

After he almost died on Exegol, him saying that hurts her heart to its core. “Ben…”

“No. Not like that. Not dying, I suppose, but leaving the galaxy worse off than it was when I came into it. Leaving before I have a chance to fix the damage I did. That’s why I came here, so I couldn't make things worse.”

That saddened her. That’s what this was all about, healing the wounds, making the galaxy better for everyone. Repairing the damage they’d done. His fear made sense to her as much as it pained her that he still felt like that. Forgiveness isn’t something he accepted easily.

“What are you afraid of?” he asks her.

She doesn’t have to think for too long, she knows her answer. It’s something she’s never shared with him before. Something that never seemed relevant but right now he was asking and she wanted to be open with him. “Rain.”

He shakes his head, visibly confused, and gives a little chuckle. “What are you on about? You love the rain. Just yesterday I pulled you in when it was trickling down here. The joy on your face.” To him, seeing that expression was among the most beautiful things in the galaxy.

She smiles. He does know her well. But not this story. “When I was young on Jakku, I always dreamed one day it would rain. But if it did, I was worried it would never stop.”

He looks on at her, focussed on her story, letting her speak.

“I had nightmares that the planet would flood. Water was scarce and extremely precious, if we had too much we wouldn't know what to do. None of us knew how to swim. None of us would have survived a flood.”

“Rey…”

“I desperately wanted it to rain, but I was terrified if it did it would never stop and it would be all my fault. People would drown. All the children would drown. They’d be separated from their parents. The village would be destroyed until there was nothing left.”

“That wouldn’t happen.” His voice takes on a know-it-all tone. “Jakku is located in the Western Reaches of the Inner Rim, a little sprinkle of rain here and there can happen but a flood is unheard of.”

“You’re right, but what about Ahch-To? It rained a lot when I was there… what if it didn’t stop for days or even weeks. What if the ocean overflows and the island floods? What if you’re there when it happens?” She begins to shiver. “Ben, you’d be safer here with us.”

“I can assure you that will not happen. And I know how to swim. Rey, there’s nothing to be afraid of. Nothing at all. Besides, I’m not afraid of drowning.” He gets a faraway look in his eyes. “Not in water anyway, but I do worry all this darkness inside me will one day suffocate me.”

“It won’t, you’ll fight it,” she says, sounding more confident now. “Just as I can fight this fear.”

“Ajan Kloss is a jungle moon,” he then points out to get his message across further. “You’d get more rain on average than I would here.”

She relaxes slightly, trying to find comfort in his words. “I haven’t thought about those nightmares for years. I never wanted to remember. Just like the memory of my parents, I’d pushed it far down and tried not to think about it. But you-- you make me want to open up about all these secrets.” She looks deep into his eyes. “And yet you still like me. You still want to be around me.”

“Likewise with you, scavenger.”

“Monster,” she jokes.

He laughs at that name. They’d come a long way since then. “You have a vivid imagination, that’s for sure. Rey, nothing bad is going to happen. Not again. We’ve been through the worst thing imaginable.”

She knew what he was referring to. It’s a miracle they both made it out of Exegol alive. 

“You’d be safer here,” Rey mumbles before she drifts off to sleep.

  
  


***

  
  


Rey awakens and rolls over to find her bed empty. It’s always empty in the mornings. She wishes he could stay here all the time, but it was part of the deal. The deal he chose, to exile himself to Ahch-To for an unspecified amount of time. Only after he’d lived out that sentence could he return to society.

“He was here last night,” Rose says from the other side of the room. “Again.”

Rey sits up and rubs her eyes. “I tried to be quiet, I’m sorry if we - _I_ \- woke you.”

Rose grins back at her. “I don’t mind. It’s so cool what you two have.”

It was a gift truly, being part of a dyad. She goes over to her friend and wraps her arms around her. “It is. But being a commander, that’s pretty cool too.”

Although the war was over, the remainder of the Resistance had stayed at the former base on Ajan Kloss, repairing ships and sending out teams to help the most vulnerable who were affected by the war’s destruction. Rose had recently been promoted to commander; she kept an eye out on the satellites for any incoming messages and organized teams to go out and help those in need. She was also an experienced mechanic who gave advice and guidance to the rest of the team.

“Yeah,” Rose says, smiling up at her best friend. “I guess it is.”

“And,” Rey says as they begin to head out the door. “You don’t have to take orders from Poe anymore.”

She grins. “Another bonus.”

Everyone begins working on their tasks for the day. Poe assigns Finn and Rey to repair a damaged B-wing. Rey loves Finn, but sometimes, he could be nosy. He acknowledged and respected her relationship with Ben, but still didn’t trust or like him.

“So,” Finn says, as she’s working underneath the ship under his watch. “Have you talked to him lately?”

“Finn, you promised you’d stop asking me.” Her voice echoes through the spacecraft’s underside.

“That’s not an answer.”

She signals to be let out and Finn helps roll her out and sit up straight. “Yes. Is that what you want to hear? We’re bonded, we can feel and sense each other, and yes, we talk and communicate to each other all the time, sometimes telepathically. I’ve told you this.”

“He was exiled. Do you know what that means? Being cut off from society. You really shouldn’t be talking to him.”

“You can’t stop me,” she says, elbowing past him harshly. She turns back to him and crosses her arms. “I voted against it.”

“He volunteered.”

“Through social manipulation.”

“We didn’t manipulate anyone. He’s the one who manipulated you, in case you’ve forgotten.” He takes a step towards her. He holds a wrench in his hand like a weapon. “Kylo Ren had you as a prisoner. He took you! Do you not remember?”

“You don’t know the whole story, you don’t know…” This was useless, the same arguments over and over again. “You know what, we’ve been over this. If you want to be my friend, then you need to respect my relationship with Ben Solo, even if you don’t agree with it.”

“I do, Rey,” he says, taking her by the shoulders. “I’m trying to, but I think you should take some time apart. You need to heal.”

_He’s helping more than you are_ , she wants to say, but she keeps her mouth shut. They all were struggling with trauma and dealt with it in different ways. Being overprotective was how Finn dealt with his.

“You two fighting again?” Poe’s voice comes through the trees. He walks over with a clipboard in hand and examines their ship. “You mix up the thrusters again, Rey?”

She rolls her eyes. “No, you’re the one who screwed it up yesterday--”

Poe doesn't let her finish, just points to the ship with his pen. “Because there is smoke piling out from under there.”

She turns and sees the plume of smoke emerging from the repair site. “Crap!”

Finn begins to run around in a panic. “Fire extinguisher!!”

Rey attempts to use the Force to stop the smoke, but it’s useless. There’s too much of it.

Rose comes running over from the other side of the base carrying buckets of water and an extinguisher. She fits her small hands underneath to put out the fire. They can hear her coughs as she fiddles with something. When she emerges moments later, her face is covered in black soot.

She darts her eyes around at her friends. “You forgot to connect the converter to the socket, that’s what caused the spark which then caused the fire and subsequent smoke.”

Poe and Finn turn to Rey and she blushes.

She sighs, eying Poe. “I’ll take responsibility for this, but not for what happened yesterday.”

“You know what?” Poe says, tapping the pen on his clipboard as he looks from Rey to Finn. “I think you two shouldn’t be paired up together anymore. You get up to too much trouble. Too much drama.”

Rey cocks her eyebrows at him as if to say, _You don’t say?_

“What?” Finn says, exasperated. “No, Rey and I can handle it. We can, right?” His eyes are pleading towards her.

“I think you’re right,” Rey says, catching his gaze. “Taking some time apart is probably best.”

Twisting his words against him, that was a cruel kind of irony. But with the way he’s been acting lately, especially when it came to Ben, it’s only a simple slap on the wrist.

Rey takes Rose’s hand and leads her away to get her cleaned up. Let them fix the ship, it was Finn’s distraction that caused her to screw it up anyway.

“Boys,” Rose says, shaking her head.

Rey grins. They could be a pain sometimes, so it was great to have a girlfriend like Rose.

Suddenly a strange feeling begins in her stomach. Something pulling at the bond. A shiver goes through her spine and a feeling of dread washes over her.

“Rey?” Rose says, looking concerned. “Are you okay?”

She’s stopped in her tracks and her face has gone pale. She shakes off the feeling and forces a smile. Feelings like that weren’t uncommon. She was acutely attuned to the Force, any kind of disturbance or anomaly she felt deeply.

“I’m fine,” she finally answers.

She’s not sure what that feeling was but something deep inside knows it had something to do with Ben. Something to with their dyad, she was sure. Was he trying to reach her? But it never felt like that. That feeling was unfamiliar. It was something else. But it was only fleeting, she couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary now.

Once she’s helped Rose clean up, she heads back to Poe to be given her new task. He gives her a TIE fighter they salvaged from the First Order to work on alone, which was much better for her. As much as she’d love to work with Rose, she had more important jobs of communicating with the desperate people of the galaxy.

Without Finn constantly questioning her, she accomplishes more. It was therapeutic putting all of her attention into repairing something. This was what she was good at, fixing broken things.

The feeling from earlier returns as she’s got a hammer jammed into the side of the ship. This time much worse. She drops the tool and leans on the TIE for balance. Her hearing begins to go and all she can hear is the faint sound of waves in the ocean.

_Ben_ , she says through the bond. She waits for an answer but there is nothing in return. “Ben,” she whispers. Still nothing.

She convinces herself everything is okay. This isn’t the first time he hasn’t responded right away. Sometimes he’s lost in thought, or meditating, and wants no distractions. Surely it’s just like that.

Within the blink of an eye, everything goes back to normal. Her hearing returns, but there is still a sense of something not right. Something out of balance.

She focuses on finishing repairing the TIE, but as the day goes on that feeling returns. This time it gradually gets more severe until she feels as though she’s drowning. She’s struggling to breathe and her lungs feel as though they’re full of water.

“Ben!” she calls out, turning around blindly. Everything has gone dark. Her eyesight is fading. She tries as hard as she can to contact him but she can’t. She can’t even feel him. His presence feels absent.

Rey abandons the almost fully repaired TIE and runs back to the main base. She collapses on her way there and has a seizure on the ground. So much pain. So much suffering. The darkness is all she can see. The darkness is all she can feel.

“REY!” she hears Finn’s voice call out to her. Her eyesight is still darkened but she can see the faint outline of him standing over her.

Rey is heaving and when she catches her voice, she really doesn’t want to talk to him. “I can’t… I don’t know.” How can she explain something like this? How could anyone possibly understand?

Rose appears next to Finn. “Rey! What happened?”

She lets them both help her up. The water is still filling her lungs, her body feels like it’s almost suffocating. She has the worst feeling deep in her gut. What she opened up to Ben about last night, the nightmare that plagued her as a child, what if it’s come true? What if Ahch-To has flooded?

“Ben,” she manages to say, finding Rose’s eyes as her eyesight returns. She is the only one who understands their connection. The only one who accepts it fully. “Something's happened. I can't contact him.”

“That’s what this is about?” Finn says, taking a step away. “This is probably a good thing. He’s cut you off. Good _._ ”

“No, it’s not like that. Something is wrong. I… can feel what he’s feeling to an extent, and it feels like he’s drowning.”

He crosses his arms. “I’m sure he’s fine.”

Rey ignores him and turns to Rose. “Can you get the satellite up for Ahch-To and check the weather pattern?”

Rose immediately pulls up the satellite radar of the island on her holo. Rey’s head is pounding, but she focuses on the screen. There are a few rain clouds here and there, but nothing even close to what she’s imagining.

“It looks all clear,” Rose says, reassuring her. “No storms on the horizon.”

She shakes her head. She knows deep down something isn’t as it should be. “It could be wrong.”

“Ninety-seven percent accuracy.”

They were good odds, but it wasn’t enough for Rey. “I have to go and check.”

“Rey,” Finn says sternly, grabbing her arm. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’s just manipulating you like he’s done many times before.”

She harshly pulls out of his grip. “He never did.”

“Yes, he did. And that’s what he’s doing now!”

It was frustrating that he couldn’t understand this. “I feel... “

“The way he did when you were dead? I felt that too, Rey. Is that what you can feel now?”

She channels into the Force and concentrates hard. Not emptiness… just _blank_. Something missing. “Not quite.”

“Then I’m sure he’s fine.”

“I wish he were here,” she mumbles.

“He chose to exile himself,” Finn snaps.

“He felt he had no choice! He didn’t feel welcome here. Everyone pushed him away.”

“What did you expect? He’s a murderer. I don’t care if he’s your telepathic boyfriend, that doesn’t excuse all the bad things he’s done.”

Now her anger was escalating. “And how many people have you killed? Or Poe? You were a stormtrooper.”

Finn backs away. “That’s different. That wasn’t my choice.”

“Being preyed upon from birth wasn’t Ben’s choice either.” She presses her hand to her pounding head. “You need to learn to forgive, Finn.”

“He’s a bad person.”

“People can change.”

He snorts at her, like that was the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “You shouldn’t go. It’s too dangerous.”

“You don’t give me orders!” she barks.

He takes her firmly by the shoulders. “Rey, don’t go. Please. I thought I lost you once. I’m not willing for it to happen again.”

She gives no response, her face staying stoic. But she lets her anger dissipate. Finn cared about her, that’s why he was acting like this. She knew that, but sometimes he didn’t have the best way of showing it.

“Give it until the morning,” he says, giving her a comforting pat on the shoulder. “I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”

She could be rash sometimes and he was probably right, it was best to wait until the morning when she has a clear head.

***

The faint feeling persisted for the rest of the day and sleep didn’t come easy. Almost every night he came, his soothing voice sending her right off to sleep. But tonight is one of the nights he didn’t show up and that worried her.

After a restless night, she awakens suddenly to a sharp excruciating pain. There is water everywhere, flooding her mind, filling her lungs. Pain. So much pain. Suffocating her, unable to breathe. Dark. Red. No way to escape. A coldness goes through her veins.

“Ben,” she croaks. No response. Nothing. All she could feel was emptiness, almost what he described when he held her lifeless body on Exegol.

_Ben_ , she strains even more in her mind. But it’s lost in the water, water that is rising and surrounding her body. The pain is too much, stronger than anything she’s felt before. Her screams echo throughout her chambers and seep out to the rest of the base.

Rose’s hand appears on her shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“I…” she struggles to even get the words out. “I have to go to him. Something isn’t right.”

Rose nods understandably and speaks quietly. “There’s a repaired ship on the far side of the compound. I made the repairs yesterday; it’ll get you to Ahch-To and back easily.”

She presses her forehead to her friends as a thank you and then rushes outside. She runs in the faint light of the sunrise, fighting through the pain, feeling like she’s wading through water. Her nightmare must have come true. The Force heard them speaking. The Force could feel them and hear them. It was a source of their bond. It was trying to seperate them again, for whatever reason, like it had tried many times before. But now it had succeeded. That was the only explanation she could think of.

Finn appears out of nowhere and she smashes into him.

“Rey.” Finn grabs her shoulders as he alway does when he talks down to her. “We heard screams. What is it?”

“I have to go,” she says through rapid breaths.

He shakes his head. “Don’t go, please.”

She pushes him off. He still didn’t understand. “He’s drowning. I can’t let him die.”

“He has the _Falcon_ , he can escape any time he pleases. I still can't believe you let him take it.”

“It’s his father’s. It belongs to him.”

“His father who he murdered _._ ”

Rey begins to react in anger and channel her energy into the Force but is disrupted when Poe comes running over.

She puts her hands up defensively and stands her ground. “I’m leaving.”

“You really gonna waste a repaired ship and what meagre fuel we have left?” Poe says.

Poe could get on her nerves, always giving her orders and believing himself to be superior to everyone else. She uses the Force to push them back, both of them struggling to stay upright as the wave of energy fights against them. She pushes harder and they are pushed back towards the mess hall.

Rey begins to run and then stops, turning back to see them regaining their footing. She uses all her might to pull a tree out of the ground from its roots and tips it over, creating a barricade between them. That’ll give her time to escape.

She finds the ship Rose repaired ready for take off. Once she gets up in the air, she can see her friends down below trying to climb over the fallen tree. Rose is looking up at her, waving goodbye and wishing her luck.

***

It’s a long trip to Ahch-To. Rey’s heartbeat rises the closer she gets, nervous for what she will find when she arrives. As she dips down into the atmosphere of the planet, she squints at the brightness of the endless blue sky as she flies through the scattered patchy clouds. She is confused to see nothing resembling a storm. This is nothing at all like what she was imagining. When the island comes into view, everything still looks relatively calm. No sign that there has been a flood.

She lands on the far edge of the island and rushes towards the hut. The ground underneath feels slightly damp. Maybe it flooded and then receded?

She tries to open up the bond but still that same overwhelming sense of suffocating is there although now not as strong. _Ben_ , she calls out. Still no response.

She smashes open the door. There are texts scattered all over the floor. She inspects the pages and they’re slightly worn and water damaged. Ben’s calligraphy set is not back in its usual place; it’s strewn all along the table which is unlike him.

Worry sets in and she runs back outside. “Ben!”

She rushes over to the cliff face and looks out at the horizon. Maybe it didn’t flood. Maybe he went out into the ocean and is stuck out there. She then realises something is missing. The _Falcon_ is nowhere to be seen.

Something shiny catches her eye from down below. She can see the faint outline of a ship underwater. But it can’t be. Luke’s X-wing is no longer down there. But there is something under there. She focuses on the water as the waves come and go until she can make it out clearly. The _Falcon._

A horrible feeling appears in her gut and the suffocating feeling gets more intense. Maybe the planet didn’t flood. Maybe he drowned himself in his father's ship as some sort of self inflicted punishment.

“No,” she whispers.

She focuses on the _Millenium Falcon_ and uses the Force to pull it out of the water. It falls and falters but she uses all her strength to bring it out. It’s the heaviest thing she’s ever lifted and just about the most energy she’s ever used before.

She successfully pulls it out and lets it drip off for a moment before letting it fall onto the grassy cliff. She collapses to the ground, her energy depleted, and forces her way on shaky legs towards the ship.

_Ben_ , she tries again. Her energy had been drained, and nothing could be felt in her bones. Emptiness, it felt like. Whether it’s due to him being dead or her connection to the Force simply exhausted, she didn’t know. But something was wrong. Something was very wrong and she needed to get to him.

“Rey?”

Was she dreaming? Her eyesight wasn’t working right. Nothing was. Nothing was making sense.

“Ben,” she croaks.

It was his voice that she heard, there was no mistaking it. She keeps crawling towards the ship, believing it to be his voice in her head coming from inside the _Falcon._

Something warm appears on her shoulder and she turns, frightened. It’s him. Right here in front of her, alive and well.

“Ben,” she says softly. “Oh Ben, is it really you?”

There is a look of concern on his face but also a look of genuine relief. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought...” She turns back towards the _Falcon_. “I thought you were drowning. I thought you were in there. I thought you tried…”

“Shhh,” he says, pulling her close. “I’m here.”

“I couldn’t sense you. Why couldn't I feel you _?_ ”

He’s silent for a moment, rubbing his hands down her arms to stop her from shaking, before he speaks. “I didn’t want the temptation of being able to leave.”

“But why couldn’t I feel you? I thought the island had flooded. I thought my nightmare had come true. I thought you’d drowned.”

He pulls away and looks into her eyes. “I’m sorry I scared you. I was only trying to protect you.”

She shakes her head, nesting it into his chest. Protect her? He’d scared the living daylights out of her. “What happened? Was there a storm? Did it flood?”

“No, nothing like that,” he says. “I thought…” He pauses, struggling to put into words what happened. ”I thought I could feel him again.”

Rey knew who he was talking about. The entity they’d defeated together on Exegol. “He’s gone. He’s not coming back.”

“We don’t know that for sure. His presence was there for almost my entire life, I know that feeling better than anything. Everything felt as it did before when he was still here. That black endless pit of self loathing. I was back there, wanting to hurt myself in the hopes it would make it stop.” He pauses for a moment to regain his now unsteady voice. “My own dark thoughts were all consuming. The nightmares came back and I didn’t want to worry you. I cut myself from the Force to save you from feeling my pain.”

“Oh Ben, I thought the nightmares didn’t happen anymore,” she says, caressing his face. “I could have helped you. Don’t worry about me, you shouldn't have to go through that alone.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I could feel…” She pauses, looking up in thought. “Snippets of what you were going through. I thought you were drowning. But it wasn’t literal.”

“It was my own thoughts drowning me. That’s what you could feel.”

Rey glances over at the _Falcon_ , water still dripping down from it, and is reminded of Luke. He submerged his X-wing, his only means of escape from this place, and cut himself off from the Force. His loved ones had no idea where he was or if he was okay.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Ben says. “I’m not so different from my uncle, am I?”

“In some ways, no, I guess not.” She runs her fingers over his face softly. “Promise me something?”

His body relaxes. He allows the bond to be opened back up, letting himself completely in for her to feel it all. “Anything.”

“Promise me you won’t ever do that again. Promise me no matter what we’re going through, we’re in this together. Two that are one.”

He lets some tears fall down his cheeks as his dark thoughts begin to dissipate. Rey feels it too. The waves receding, the flood ceasing to be.

  
  


***

  
  


Ben made the hut nice and cosy, a lot more homely than when she had stayed here. Under the candlelight, he has his arms wrapped around her tightly as she looks around the room. Although their dyad made it so that no matter how physically separated they were, it felt as though they were together, there was something special about truly being together. Alone, in the quiet, with nothing else to distract them or seperate them.

No, they weren't alone. They never were. They never would be.

A light pattering begins on the roof of the hut. Thunder can be heard in the distance and flashes of light come through the gap underneath the door. Rey begins to shiver. A never ending storm. A rain that never stops. It only gets heavier and heavier and Rey begins to believe her worst nightmare is now coming true.

“Maybe...” she says, sitting up straight. “Maybe it wasn’t only your thoughts I was interpreting. Maybe it was a vision. A warning of a storm to come. Maybe this is it. The flood. Maybe it’s our destiny.”

“Rey,” he says soothingly, nuzzling his face into her neck. “It’s just rain.”

She rushes to the door and puts her ear against it. “It’s not just rain, it’s a storm.” She turns back to him. “It’s getting worse.”

Ben gets up and opens the door, the wind blows the rain inside and Rey takes a step away. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you. You’ve always loved the rain.” He holds out his hand.

She considers taking Ben’s hand. The hand that felt safe. The hand that promised her she wasn’t alone. The hand that felt like home when it was in hers. She reaches out and lets him guide her.

They walk out into the cool night as the rain pours down around them. It’s cold, and goosebumps appear on her bare arms when the large droplets land on them. But she begins to let her fears go. He was right, ever since she was a child she’d always dream of dancing out in the rain.

She tilts her head up and lets it completely wash over her. She did love the rain. There was nothing else like it. She allows herself to smile. There was nothing to worry about. Ben was safe and well. And he was here, only an arms length away. There was nothing to be afraid of. As long as they had each other, everything was as it should be.

She laughs and twirls around. The thunder doesn’t even phase her anymore. She pulls him close and presses her lips to his and they hold each other, kissing as the lightning strikes in the distance and the rain pours over them.

  
  


***

  
  


After Ben helps her dry off and change into some dry clothes, they lie down in Ben’s small bed. He strokes her hair as he studies every inch of her face. They only have a few moments together like this and didn’t want to waste a single second of it. She had to get back to the base now that she knew everything was okay here.

The rain loudly pattering on the roof is quite soothing. Rey has relaxed and Ben’s dark thoughts have faded just like the waves in the distant ocean. Everything feels right.

“Ben,” she says, whispering his name the way she loved to do. “What are you afraid of?”

He doesn’t even hesitate before he answers. “Hurting you.”

That’s why he shut her out. To save her from feeling his pain and suffering. She hated him for doing that, for making himself deal with everything alone. But she loved him for the care he had towards her.

“What are you afraid of?” he asks her.

The fear she’d had since childhood no longer seemed relevant. The rain didn’t scare her anymore, it never really had, not even the near torrential rain like they were experiencing now. The probability of an entire planet flooding was very low. There was nothing to fear. None of that mattered anymore. There was only one thing that scared her now. Only one thing she was truly afraid of.

“Losing you,” she answers.

Rey and Ben hold each other close as they fall asleep, hoping it will prevent their greatest fears from ever coming true.


End file.
